About 80 percent of cops retrained after Eric Garner’s death called the three-day Police Academy program a “waste of time,” and many fell asleep in their seats, says a high-ranking NYPD official.

A day after The Post revealed that a goofball department bigwig wanted to arm officers with breath mints as part of sweeping reforms, a disgusted member of the brass revealed that much more is wrong with the program.

The veteran boss said that the $35 million “smart policing” primer is a flop, and that eight out of every 10 cops give it negative reviews when they finish the training.

The NYPD has already retrained 4,000 cops and reviewed about 2,000 surveys, the boss said. Another 16,000 officers will be trained.

“It’s been a big disappointment on the backs of the city because they’re paying for this course,” the insider said.

The retraining was announced with much fanfare last year by Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton as they sought to heal the city and address critics who blamed takedown tactics for Garner’s death.

Eric GarnerAP

The 43-year-old Staten Island man died after a videotaped confrontation in which Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo tackled Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.

De Blasio trumpeted the smart-policing program in December.

Eric Garner being pinned to the ground by police officers.Facebook

“The training that’s going to happen here in this building will change the future of this city,” he said “It will have not just an impact on thousands of people, it will have an impact on millions of people, because every interaction that every officer has with their fellow New Yorkers after they are trained again will be different.”

But the high-ranking source said the new regimen has been a bitter failure.

“Officers thought they were going to get some real hands-on, quality training on how to deal with a hostile prisoner or arrestee,” the source said. “They didn’t get that.”

Instead, most of the training involved eight-hour lectures — with some cops dozing off, he said.

“It’s three days, it’s boring and there’s no real tactics,” he said. “They’re not putting them in scenarios. Cops felt they would get more tactical training in light of the Eric Garner case.”

Cops sit for lectures the first two days at the NYPD’s brand-new $750 million academy in Queens, and on the third day learn techniques meant to be used instead of the forbidden chokehold.

But the cops are not put through real-life simulations, the insider complained, and the multimillion-dollar Hollywood-style set at the academy — which includes a bank, bodega and police cars — sits unused.

On the first day, officers participate in “Blue Courage,” a cultural-sensitivity workshop created by a consulting group and used by other police departments.

“Blue Courage is a way of being, a philosophy that inspires one to embody the noblest of character and unquestioned devotion,” the company’s Web site says. “It is to flourish in all aspects of life, to act with practical wisdom, to exude vitality and to hearten human connections.”

The insider said: “It’s more of a self-reflection kind of course — reflecting on how they can improve as police officers.”

On the second day, officers get lectures on “the legitimacy of policing — why police officers do what they do,” he said.

In the final session, held in the gym, officers are taught the “high-low takedown,” in which two cops apprehend a suspect, one from behind at the legs, the other from the front at the torso.

In an attempt to be accommodating, the NYPD allows cops to train during the hours of their tours. But that’s backfired with cops who work midnight shifts.

“Instructors are saying that students are falling asleep,” the source said. “You wouldn’t take a college course at midnight.”

“There’s not enough tactical, hands-on training. This should be 100 percent hands-on training, not sitting in a classroom eating breath mints because it’s going to make you curse less.”